Heyman's companion exhibit, organized by Bell Gallery director Jo-An Conklin, offers his awkward, expressionist watercolor and gouache portraits of Iraqi men surrounded by words in which they describe being forced to strip naked, beaten, dunked in cold water, imprisoned in small boxes, and raped by American personnel while imprisoned at Abu Ghraib near Baghdad.

The texts come from accounts the Philadelphia-based RISD teacher heard when he traveled to Jordan and Turkey between 2006 and '08 to sit in on interviews by lawyers preparing to bring lawsuits on behalf of the men. The harrowing words give the paintings their fearsome charge.

"The female solider started to kiss me and tried to have sex with me, touched me where she shouldn't," Heyman quotes one man. "I spat at her. They left and other soldiers came in, beat me with sticks, and then put an electric shock until I could not see and passed out. They broke my left arm and my right leg. I was still tied up and naked." In these accounts are the ruins of American ideals of liberty and justice squandered by Bush administration-approved torture.

NIGHTMARE VISION Heyman's 'When Photographers Are Blinded.'

Heyman's When Photographers Are Blinded, Eagles' Wings Are Clipped is a 10-foot-by-15-foot-tall 2010 etching on plywood in the expressionist tradition of Max Beckmann. It depicts a blindfolded photographer photographing a fire; thorny trees; a man sprawled on the ground with his long tongue hanging out; a man with four eyes and an arrow through his heart hanging upsidedown; and a pile of cards displaying Assyrian reliefs, a Humvee, a burning mosque. Feet in combat books run along the bottom. Sordid eagles or buzzards frame the whole design. After all his grim reporting, Heyman has distilled a nightmare vision of the war.

The shape of things to come The Democratic front-runners and the Republican establishment will be making critical decisions in the coming weeks that will shape the course of the race.

Lapdog, meet watchdog Hating the media has long been a popular pastime. But after the invasion of Iraq four years ago, anti-press animus reached a new level of intensity on the left. Feast or famine: Jack Shafer defends the press pre-Iraq. By Adam Reilly

Inside looking out Visiting Elizabeth King's "The Sizes of Things In the Mind's Eye" at Brown University's Bell Gallery (64 College Street, Providence, through December 21) is a bit like visiting Dr. Frankenstein's lab — all glass eyes, artificial limbs, and automatons.

White room The first striking thing about Annabel Daou's exhibit, "Knot," at Brown University's Bell Gallery (64 College Street, Providence, through March 8) is the room itself.

Soldiers committing suicide On July 22, 2004, unable to handle the intensity anymore — the daily vomiting, the feeling that he was a murderer — Lucey wrapped a garden hose around his neck and hanged himself.

Culture wars American anthropologist Paula Loyd was in Afghanistan, discussing living costs with a local man when suddenly he doused her with fuel from a jug he was carrying and set her on fire.

Gulf War vet 'saved' by Phoenix article Yesterday, we published "Soldiers Committing Suicide," by Jason Notte, and just hours later, Mike Fitzgerald left our Portland editor a voicemail saying he's experiencing the same things a man described in the story had.

Review: The Hurt Locker Now that the troops are pulling out and the war no longer haunts the headlines, maybe people will want to see a film about Iraq — especially since it's one of the best war movies ever made.

Interview: Kathryn Bigelow Although everyone makes a point of Kathryn Bigelow's gender and height and good looks, what's germane is that even if she were short and had bushy eyebrows like Martin Scorsese, she still would be directing action pictures like no one since Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone .

Robert McNamara, RIP As secretary of defense under President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara prosecuted the Vietnam War on a day-to-day basis, just as Donald Rumsfeld orchestrated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for George W. Bush.